WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Link to PDF best practise

for

From: Rick Hill
Date: Feb 8, 2012 1:00PM

Hmmm… any suggestions for instances where they have more than one file format linked?

<li>
Social and Behavioral Full Committee Review Application Form (
<a class="internal-link" href="d/irb/Application_SBE_FullBoard12.5.11LT.doc">DOC</a>
|
<a class="internal-link" href="d/irb/Application_SBE_FullBoard12.5.11LT.rtf">RTF</a>
)
</li>

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Rick

From: Jared Smith < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>
Reply-To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012 10:03:56 -0700
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Link to PDF best practise

I think you may have made a mistake in your code. Your "better"
example presents a totally empty link. This would always be an issue.
The best presentation would be:

<a class="internal-link" title="SPO_DataSheetInstructions.pdf"
href="../pgc/d/spo/SPO_DataSheetInstructions.pdf">Data Sheet
Instructions and certifications (PDF)</a>

This provides both the content of the link and the file type within
the link text.

Note that I removed the target="_blank" attribute. It's always rather
annoying to me when such links open a new window because my system
(and I think most systems these days) are set to handle PDF files in
external programs (not within the browser window). Having
target="_blank" results in an empty window that must then be closed by
the user.

Jared